Dyson's Air Multiplier

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Dyson has unveiled its "Air Multiplier" fan and Pocket-lint was on hand to get some snaps of the interesting magnifying-glass-shaped design. The company tried very hard to keep its bladeless fan a secret, but news leaked out some months ago so the eventual announcement was almost something of an anticlimax.

The fan does what it purports to do very well. It blows air at you, basically. It does this without blades thanks to a very thin stream of air which the fan emits from around the rim at 55mph. Without boring you with an extensive description of fluid dynamics, it works because of friction - if air is travelling in a jet, air alongside it tends to get pulled along too.

It can therefore shoot out a relatively thin stream of air, and that small quantity of air will pull upto 15 times more air along with it. Pretty efficient, compared to a traditional fan (though a similar principle does apply there, too). In terms of volume, the fan is about as noisy as a regular fan, if a smidge less.

What was most surprising about the Air Multiplier was the price - £200 for both the 10-inch and 13-inch versions. It's pretty and all, but when a regular fan is a fiver, it seems tough to justify splashing out two hundred quid on a desk fan, however beautiful it is. What do you guys think?